中國世界上出生率最低 遭遇精子危機

Beijing’s efforts to reinvigorate China’s birth rate, one of the lowest in the world, face a serious obstacle as semen quality plummets among young male donors, research suggests.

研究表明，中國政府提升中國出生率的努力面臨一個嚴重的障礙——年輕男性捐精者的精液質量大幅下降。中國是世界上出生率最低的國家之一。

Last year fewer than a fifth of young men who donated sperm in the inland province of Hunan had sufficiently healthy semen to qualify as a donor, according to a 15-year study of more than 30,000 applicants.

根據一項持續15年、對3萬多名申請捐精者進行的研究，去年在中國內陸省份湖南捐精的年輕人中，只有不到五分之一的人精液足夠健康，有資格捐贈。

In 2001 more than half qualified.

而在2001年時，超過半數申請者能夠合格。

Local media reports indicate Hunan is not the only province suffering a shortage in qualified donors.

國內媒體報道表明，湖南並非唯一一個合格捐精者不足的省份。

State broadcaster China Radio International recently reported that a sperm bank in Henan province had dropped minimum height and education requirements for donors and was offering to store their semen free of charge for three decades in an effort to make up its own deficit.

官方的中國國際廣播電臺(CRI)最近報道，河南省的一家精子庫降低了對捐獻者身高和學歷的最低要求，並且免費保存捐獻者的精子30年，以彌補精子的短缺。

Growing evidence seems to suggest that male infertility is increasingly becoming a serious concern in the entire country, said Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

越來越多的證據似乎都表明，男性不育正日益成爲全國範圍內的一個嚴重問題，位於紐約的美國對外關係委員會(CFR)全球健康高級研究員黃嚴忠說。

If shown to reflect a broader trend, such findings would further complicate China’s mounting demographic problems.

如果這些發現反映出一種更廣泛的趨勢，這將使中國日益加劇的人口問題進一步複雜化。

China’s fertility rate — the number of children a woman is expected to have during her child-bearing years — was 1.05 last year, according to data from the Chinese government’s annual 1 per cent population survey, which polls about 17m citizens each year.

根據中國政府每年對約1700萬居民進行的年度全國1%人口抽樣調查，去年中國的生育率是1.05。生育率指的是女性在育齡期預期生育子女的總數。

The bottom territories in a World Bank 2014 survey — South Korea, Portugal, Hong Kong and Macau — had fertility rates of 1.2, against a global average of 2.5.

在世界銀行(World Bank)2014年進行的調查中，生育率最低的國家和地區——韓國、葡萄牙、香港和澳門——的生育率是1.2，而全球平均生育率是2.5。

That survey estimated China’s fertility at 1.6, still far below the 2.1 births per woman needed to keep a country’s population from shrinking.

該調查估計中國的生育率是1.6，這個數值依然遠低於讓一國人口免於減少所需的生育率水平——平均每個女性生育2.1個孩子。

China is ageing rapidly, leading to a shortage of young workers and warnings of a pensions crisis, but its fertility rate has long been in decline.

中國正處於迅速老齡化之中，導致年輕勞動者短缺，引發有關養老金危機的警告。然而，長期以來中國的生育率卻一直在下降。

From a peak of 6.4 births per woman in 1965 it had fallen to 2.8 by 1979, the year the notorious one-child policy was introduced amid fears of runaway population growth.

該指標從1965年每位婦女平均生育6.4個子女的峯值，下滑到1979年的2.8。1979年，由於擔心人口增長失控，中國引入了一胎化政策。

That regime led to widespread sex-selective abortion, resulting in a significantly skewed sex ratio.

該政策導致了普遍的性別選擇流產，致使性別比例顯著扭曲。

The blanket policy was scrapped late last year for a two-child policy.

這一全面政策在去年底被取消，取而代之的是兩胎化政策。

But previous loosening of the old policy has fallen short of policymakers’ hopes in raising the country’s birth rate, with many Chinese couples apparently unwilling to take advantage of the chance to have a second child.

不過，由於許多中國夫婦似乎不願利用這一機會養育第二個子女，對舊政策的放寬未能實現中國政策制定者提高中國出生率的期望。

The situation is probably worse than expected, said Mr Huang, noting that the results of a government-commissioned national study on infertility in China that had been scheduled to end in 2011 had still not been made public.

黃嚴忠表示：局面可能比想象的更糟糕。他指出，中國政府委託開展了一項對中國不孕不育現象的全國性研究，該研究項目原定於2011年結束，卻至今仍未公佈研究結果。

Some researchers also say previous census results have been manipulated by family planning officials in regions with a pro-birth policy, who inflate birth rates in order to make their policies look more effective.

部分研究人員還表示，在實施支持生育政策的地區，此前的人口普查結果受到了計生官員的操縱。他們誇大出生率，目的是爲了令他們的政策執行效率看起來更高一些。

The researchers in the Hunan semen study, published online in the journal Fertility and Sterility, say there is no clear explanation for why donors’ reproductive health declined so rapidly.

湖南精液研究項目的研究報告發布在學術期刊《生育與不孕》(Fertility and Sterility)的網站上。該項目的研究人員表示，對於捐精者生殖健康爲何下滑如此迅速，目前還沒有明確解釋。

But they point to increased environmental pollution, including pollution of water, air and food, as a possible explanation.

不過，他們提到包括水污染、空氣污染和食品污染在內的環境污染加劇是其可能原因。

However, World Health Organisation spokesperson Tarik Jašarević said the WHO could not yet determine with certainty which factors had caused deterioration in certain or multiple countries, as studies often employed different methodologies to analyse semen.

不過，世界衛生組織(WHO)發言人塔裏克.賈薩瑞維奇(Tarik Jašarević)表示，由於各研究項目中分析精液的方法往往各不相同，WHO目前還不能完全確定什麼因素導致了特定國家或多個國家精液質量的惡化。

He also cautioned that semen quality did not necessarily correlate directly with male fertility.

他還提醒說，精液質量不一定與男性生育能力直接相關。

It should be noted that male reproductive health can be affected by many complex factors, including lifestyle, the environment and concomitant diseases, he said.

他說，應該指出的是，男性生殖健康可能受到許多複雜因素的影響，包括生活方式、環境及相關疾病。

More research is needed to enable sound guidance or policy advice concerning deteriorating semen quality.

關於精液質量的惡化，需要開展更多研究才能提出完善的指導意見或政策建議。